Discover The Fan Games That Led To Sonic Mania

July 29, 2016

For the first time in a while, there’s a real buzz about Sonic The Hedgehog thanks to the announcement of his new 2D game Sonic Mania. But while the history of Sega and PagodaWest games is well known, you might not be familiar with Christian Whitehead or Headcannon Games – both of which have roots in the Sonic fan community. Here’s a look back at the unofficial projects that got them a foot in the door with Sega…

SonED

Headcannon’s Simon Thomley produced one of the most useful early modding tools for Sonic games, a level editor called SonED. The more recent version SonED2 is still used today.

Retro Sonic

Christian Whitehead’s original fan game underwent a number of changes over the years, and was one of the first Sonic fan games to closely match the feel of the Mega Drive classics.

Project Mettrix

Simon Thomley of Headcannon started off making utilities for editing the Mega Drive games, before making his own game engine, then known as Project E02. The first game he made for it was Project Mettrix.